The Trekkie's Forum

The next day the weather started worsening, not good news for birding, but my word did it do wonders for the scenery! Those sometimes evenly brown landscapes were painted in beautiful, mysterious light!


Prince Albert 7626 by jackie.during, on Flickr

We took a drive out on one of the roads that lead to the Gamkapoort Dam, not with any intention of driving that far due to the iffy weather. We spotted two large leopard tortoises which were wonderful sightings; they are incredibly well camouflaged in that Karoo scrub.


Leopard Tortoise 7728 by jackie.during, on Flickr

By Saturday the weather was plain awful! It was apparently sorely needed rain for the town which had been experiencing a drought, so i tried not to complain as I sat staring out the window watching the pouring, freezing rain.

Finally by 4pm I had reached my limit though and we decided tot ake a quick drive to the local dairy which makes the BESTEST cheese EVER; their yoghurt is JUST as good! But it was closed for another half hour when we arrived, so sans camera (yeah BIG MISTAKE!) we drove out on one of the gravel roads from the town. As we drove through a little pass, I spotted 4 klipspringers right next to, but above us. I have never seen so many of them at a time, not even in Kruger and we were thrilled to watch them up so close. They really are the most gorgeous little buck and these had thick, winter coats. They were not too bothered by our presence and stayed put as we watched them...and yes, I have no photos as the camera was sitting at the house. We also saw a huge troop of very skittish baboons. It was the first time my mom's dog (Laya came with on the trip) had seen baboons and she was totally transfixed...but did not utter a sound, not even a growl~

The only worthwhile bird sighting of the day was back house when the sudden lift of many doves signaled the arrival of some kind of raptor. I quickly searched the sky and saw a Southern Pale Chanting Goshawk land in a tree a little way off. A Hadeda Ibis followed and I am not sure it it tried to harass the Goshawk, or had trouble landing in the wind, but it looked as if it was trying to land on the Goshawks head before choosing its own perch.


southern Pale-chanting Goshawk and Hadeda Ibis7734 by jackie.during, on Flickr

Thank you, Muis

Thank you, WTM and yeah, have to agree, those wide open spaces steal the heart! Have some nice shots of that coming up...

The following day we set out on the same road we saw the klipspingers, but as my dad later informed me, he was hoping to get to the Gamkapoort Dam from that side....it's a very elusive dam that

It was very chilly and cloudy once again and this time my mom stayed at home as she unfortunately caught a tummy bug. The chill did not stop Laya hanging out the back window, even though here eyes and nose streamed from the cold, with the kind of glee only a dog hanging out a window in a moving car can experience. We put the heater on full blast to warm us as the cold air streamed in from the back window.

The Red-billed Quelea had no doubt informed the klipspringers that this time I had my camera with me, so of course they were MIA. Familiar Chat and Karoo Chat were once again fairly plentiful, but other than Bokmakierie and a single Wattled Starling and a noisy bunch of Red-winged Starling, the birds were all no doubt cuddles up somewhere warm!


Familiar Chat 7739 by jackie.during, on Flickr

But the views, oh my word, the views...I will abstain from over using the adjectives and simply post up the pictures, they do after all say a thousand words


Weltevrede road from Prince Albert 7737 by jackie.during, on Flickr


Weltevrede Road from Prince Albert7743 by jackie.during, on Flickr


Weltevrede road from Prince Albert7744 by jackie.during, on Flickr


Weltevrede Road from Prince Albert by jackie.during, on Flickr

We drove through a few farms, some seemingly hard hit by the drought, their olive trees dying! Then through a drift which would be uncrossable during rains, through a fig farm with trees covered in figs! We marveled at how the figs were not full of birds as this is by far one of fruit eating birds favourite snacks!

Finally we came to a dead end! Two locked gates with the fork in the road cut off from further travel; foiled yet again! The one gate was to a private reserve and the other to a Cape Nature reserve. I asked one of the locals that day what the story was and apparently one can now only access the Gamkapoort reserve and dam from the road we had done the day before....for anyone wanting to do this, for heavens sake do not attempt it without a 4x4!

On our return, as we drove away from the fig farm, here comes a guy jogging over a little koppie to my left, followed by a little girl trotting on the most beautiful horse (you can apparently do rides form the fig farm); she waved happily at me...so need I say what I will be doing next time we go to prince Albert?

We arrived back home just in time for lunch and headed to a local little restaurant for home made bread end veg soup for me and a divine veg platter for dad, yuuuuuuuum food!

p.s. I forgot to mention s sighting of a Dusky Sunbird, flying next to the car for a short while on the previous day's outing...

Thank you, DD and yeah it is! Every corner you get to reveals another stunning, yet different, valley...it's interesting, but the area still has a very palpable feeling of "wildness"; you know of you break down or get lost here, rescue may be a VERY long time in coming, which hugely adds to the adventure!

Amazing photos Jay! The scenery must be amazing to see in full vision if the photos look so awesome!